


By Any Other Name

by fid_gin



Series: The Loved 'verse [18]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:09:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fid_gin/pseuds/fid_gin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He should have known immediately that it wasn’t her. Well, that it was her, but it wasn’t the right her.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original post date: 4/20/2014
> 
> This chapter is Ten/Rose. It's _Loved_ 'verse, so overall it's Ten II/Ten/Rose. And eventually, there will be Rose/Rose.
> 
> Falls shortly before _Just Another Doctor_ in the chronology. I have no idea when I'll post the next two parts, but I PROMISE YOU I will not chicken out and vanish again.  
>  Title is, of course, Shakespeare's. _"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."_

Until she saw the Doctor, it had been just another standard jump with the dimension cannon, if there was such a thing.

As usual, Rose arrived in a new universe with very little recollection of what had happened in the last one and only her hastily scribbled notes in the pad she carried with her to give her any clue: _Attempt six - no Doctor._ There was more she hadn’t written down, of course, as always: vague impressions that made her feel afraid or sad, but she had decided from the beginning that _he_ was the only thing that mattered, and that the less record she kept of what she saw and did in those other worlds, the better. Torchwood’s best and brightest scientists had explained to her back in her own universe that the dimension hopping would cause disorientation, nausea, and memory loss, and with these intangible feelings of dread and loss she sometimes got after leaving one parallel and entering another she almost counted it as a blessing. At least she wasn’t puking her guts out anymore like her notes reminded her she had the first time.

Standing in the street getting her bearings, she ran down her mental checklist: the people around her looked normal and weren’t running or screaming, London looked normal – no alien ships in the sky or burnt-out shells of buildings. A passer-by shot her a vaguely pitying glance before answering her that it was 2011… not so far from her own time, then. The sight of the TARDIS was so unexpected, her gaze passed right over it at first. It was only the Doctor, _her Doctor_ , walking towards his ship that snapped her out of it, and then she was running, running to him like she’d imagined all these years, shouting his name. He had just enough time to turn to face her before she threw herself into his arms, registering and loving the look of shock on his face just before doing so.

He hugged her back fiercely for only a second before pushing her away and holding her at arms’ length, gripping her shoulders almost painfully. “Rose,” he breathed, sounding on the verge of tears. “How did...?” He looked around, his eyes darting in every direction as though searching for another person he expected to be with her. When he didn’t see who he was looking for, his face grew solemn as his eyes once more met hers. The Doctor looked closely at her, into her, looked her up and down with such scrutiny she began to feel uncomfortable. Wasn’t he happy to see her at all?

“It’s me,” she said, feeling foolish and trying to smile. “I came back. I...I _missed_ you.”

His face fell as his hands dropped from her shoulders. “Oh, Rose,” he said, rubbing at his eyes and looking more miserable than ever. “I miss you, too.” She noted the present-tense.

 

***

 

He should have known immediately that it wasn’t her. Well, that it was _her_ , but it wasn’t the right her.

Six weeks. To be more precise, 44 days. To be as precise as he was capable of (and he was capable of some fearsome precision), 44 days, 5 hours, 26 minutes, and 5.326 seconds since his two companions had _wandered off_ and fallen through a rift into what his tireless research since pointed to being a bubble universe. He’d always been fascinated by the theory behind bubble universes, as if the universe were a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubbles on the outside, except really not at all like that, but it was always useful to have simple analogies at hand when travelling with a human. 

His hearts clenched. Not that he was travelling with a human now; she’d fallen again, he’d lost her. He’d lost them both, Rose and his part-human counterpart, and it was cold comfort that at least wherever they were, they had each other. That was assuming they were still alive. 

All of these thoughts flashed through his brain in an instant – 0.147 seconds, to be precise – while this younger Rose was looking at him with a mixture of joy and confusion and increasingly, fear. He noticed the clothes now, the blue leather jacket that she’d stopped wearing long ago. He noticed the fact that she was younger and harder, that she smelled of exhaustion and the faint ozone of travelling between universes. And of course, even without these subtle details which his sharp perception tallied one by one, there was the glaring fact that this Rose was alone, his double noticeably absent from her side.

She was telling him she’d missed him, so like the last time (first time?) she'd found him and held him in the middle of that street as his body had shook with pain from the Dalek laser. “Oh, Rose,” he sighed, “I miss you, too.” He turned and unlocked the TARDIS doors, gestured inside. “C'mon.” Rose was not stupid, not his beautiful, brilliant Rose: she hesitated, searching his face for an explanation.

“It's wrong,” she said finally. “It's you, but...this isn't the right universe, is it?”

“I'll tell you everything, just...please.” He tilted his head toward the interior of the ship again, and after one last cautious glance around her, Rose Tyler stepped into his TARDIS for what had to have been, for her, the first time in years.

He put the kettle on.

“How many tries is this for you?” he asked as she sat at the table, her back straight and tense. When she didn't answer, he tried to soften his face into something resembling a smile. “It's okay, you can tell me. You're in the right universe Rose, just...the wrong time.”

“How's that any better?” she retorted. His hearts swelled with pride. Oh no, Rose Tyler was no fool. When the smile on his face became genuine, she visibly relaxed a fraction. “Seven, I think. I can't remember, but I've got...” Her sentence trailed off as she apparently decided whatever she was about to say might be too much information this soon in the conversation.

“Seven,” he repeated, feeling dazed. “You never said. You never wanted to talk about it. Or I never asked...” His voice broke off. Shaking his head, the Doctor cleared his throat dramatically as he always did when preparing to give a lecture of a sort.

“Right. What you need to know, Rose Tyler, is that you've already found me by this time and have been with me, travelling with me again, for a very long time now.” Her eyes flew open, and she began to look all around her in panic. “It's okay,” he said what he hoped was reassuringly. “The time differential is muted from all the hopping around you've been doing...technically, this isn't even your universe anymore, so interacting with yourself doesn't perturb the timeline. Until you arrived back, the first you I mean, you ceased to exist. There won't be any Reapers. And anyway, you're, she’s...” There was that lump in his throat again. “There's more,” he continued, swallowing hard. “When you found me, I'd been hurt. I averted regeneration but caused a biological metacrisis and...” He watched her brow furrow in confusion: he was losing her. “There's another Doctor,” he finished. “Another me, travelling with you and me. There's three of us, together, and they're gone, Rose.” His words became rushed, desperate. “They're trapped, they've been gone for so long and I can't, I should send you away, but I can't...” He could feel tears burning behind his eyes, tears he’d not allowed himself to shed in 44 days because it wasn’t _helpful_ , crying, it wasn’t _productive_ , it wouldn’t lead to the bolt of inspiration he needed to figure out a way to get them back. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, he swallowed against a dry mouth and tried to school his expression.

Through the blur of the unshed tears in his eyes, he saw the hazy figure of Rose stand and approach him. She may not have fully trusted that this was the right universe, or indeed the right Doctor, but his kind Rose wouldn't stand by and watch someone wracked with pain and grief when she could offer comfort. He felt her arms encircle him once more and he was clutching at her, burying his face in her hair. “I’ve lost you again,” he finished.

Rose looked up at him. “You’ve found me now, though.”

“You can’t stay,” he said with a sharp shake of his head, temptation like a hot spike piercing his chest. “The timeline–”

“I know.” The corner of her mouth tipped up slightly. “I know I can’t stay. But right now, right here, you’ve found me and I’ve found you.” She moved against him, just a little, just enough so that his awareness was suddenly full of every point of contact between their bodies. Her hands found their way into his hair. “And I’ve missed you.”

He was kissing her then, unsure even if he’d moved to close the gap between them or if she had, kissing her the way he'd wanted to, the way he should have that first time she'd found him, His brain was shouting at him that he was weak and this was wrong, potentially damaging to the timeline and _definitely_ delaying the inevitable when he would have to send this Rose back to her own timeline in her own universe to continue the search for him that would end on an Earth in 2008 during a Dalek invasion. But her mouth tasted so sweet and her hands in his hair, how he’d _missed_ her hands in his hair, even if for him it had only been a matter of weeks.

They stumbled out of the galley and into the corridor, the bones of his left hand colliding rather painfully with a rondel as he clutched at her shoulder and backed her against the wall. Rose was already pulling his shirt out of his trousers, as if she feared that any waste of time would give him time to think and reject her. Her hands slipped to his arse and pulled and he groaned at the friction between their bodies. He was long past the point where he could have stopped this; perhaps he was past it the moment she ran into his arms outside.

Rose was pulling them through the nearest doorway, completely unaware that it was the human Doctor’s bedroom, or was back when they'd bothered with separate bedrooms, and he felt a stab of guilt at the same time that the scent of the other man that clung to the room escalated his arousal even more, if that was possible. She began to shed her clothes in a quick, no-nonsense way, still rushing, almost like she wanted to get it over with.

The firm set of her mouth, the tension in her frame – it made him wonder what exactly was going on behind those brown eyes that he knew so well. When he’d been reunited with her, he’d been thrown so topsy-turvy by the existence of his duplicate and losing Donna; had he even asked her what she’d gone through to get back to him? Had he even wondered if there were hidden scars, scars that even she might not consciously be aware of? How could he claim to love her if he’d never even asked? She was just his Rose, his constant, undaunted Rose, and he’d let her take care of him when maybe he should have been taking care of her.

“So brave,” he blurted, and she paused in removing her bra, frowning at this apparent non sequitur. 

“For getting naked?” she said with a smirk.

“For everything you do,” he murmured, drawing closer and sliding fingers underneath the waistband of her knickers. Her skin was hot to his touch, her hipbones prominent, and he remembered how she’d confessed to him the sporadic nature of her meals while she’d been using the dimension cannon. He frowned again with worry for this Rose and the life she was currently leading. He wondered how he could possibly be worth what she was enduring.

He sank to his knees, pulling her knickers down her legs as he went and savouring the scent of her as she stepped out of them and stood there, completely bare and exposed to his scrutiny.  
The Doctor trailed his hands over her legs, light touches, and listened to her rapid breathing as his fingers trailed up her inner thigh and gently stroked open her sex. The wetness he found there made him gasp, his desire pulsing with the beats of his hearts.

“It’s been a while, all right?” she said defensively, a reply to his unspoken thoughts. It occurred to him for the first time that she might think he was comparing her to her future self and somehow finding her lacking. 

The Doctor stood and met Rose’s eyes. “It’s perfect. _You’re_ perfect.” And then, because the words had been burning in the back of his throat for a while, “I’m sorry.”

She took his hand and retreated to the bed then, pulling him along with her. The Doctor crawled over her, still clothed, intent on her pleasure. He kissed his way down her chest and stomach, his tie trailing against her skin.

Rose’s hands slid through his hair, her nails scratching against his scalp and making him groan. As he spread her legs and buried his face between her thighs, the ghost of his Rose and the other Doctor grew fainter...fainter still. This Rose cried out when his mouth found her, stroking the bud of her clitoris with his tongue and sucking on it in quick pulses. He slid two fingers into her and she came almost immediately, bucking hard under him and nearly breaking his nose with her pubic bone...well, she had said it'd been awhile. The Doctor kept licking, drawing every last shiver from her and then, wiping her moisture from his face, moved over her while unfastening his trousers. He didn't even bother, couldn't be bothered to take them off: freeing his cock and pushing them down just so far as was necessary, he slid into her in one deep stroke that made them both moan. They moved together in the other Doctor's bed, the TARDIS humming low around them as though trying to remind the Doctor that something was missing, but he managed to tune her out. 44 days, 6 hours, 5 minutes, and 32.8 seconds: he would have his Rose, now, even if technically she wasn't the right one.

 

***

 

“Can I ask you a question?” Rose said, interrupting his current flow of babble.

“‘Can I ask you a question’ _is_ a question,” he answered, not quite with his normal level of gleeful cheek but closer than he’d felt in weeks.

“Why should I help you do this?”

After they'd made love, the Doctor's mind had cleared for what felt like the first time in ages. Rose was here. _This_ Rose. She'd travelled between dimensions to find him, dimensions very similar in fact to bubble universes, and for her to have done so meant...

The Doctor’s hand froze in the act of sonicing her yellow dimension-hopper, and he looked up to regard her with something like horror. “What?”

She gave a half-shrug, not quite meeting his eyes. “I mean, I’ve completed my mission: I found you. Whether or not it’s the exact you I was looking for doesn’t really matter, does it? And this other Rose and other Doctor’ve got each other, don’t they? Why’m I risking my life just to lose you again?”

His mouth opened and closed as he searched for the words. “You said you understood...”

“I know what I _said_ ,” she interrupted, sounding a bit like a petulant teenager. When she finally looked up and met his eyes with hers, he could hardly believe how much younger she looked to him in that moment than the Rose he’d spent his days with since they’d been reunited. “Well?”

“ _Other_ than the universe-shattering paradox when you don’t show up to meet me in the right time and place and the other Doctor isn’t created and reality as we know it is destroyed, you mean?”

He saw a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “Other than that, yeah.”

A response didn’t come easily, and the Doctor found himself reminded of things as they had been once upon a time between him and Rose, the way that this Rose no doubt remembered him best: unable or unwilling to give a straight answer or even tell her how desperately he loved her. If he refused to answer her now, went back to tinkering or lost her question in a stream of his own meaningless words, she would not be surprised. Would probably not even call him on it. That thought wrenched his hearts painfully, and he resolved that it made it all the more necessary to make her understand how she and his counterpart had changed him… _would_ change him.

But that confession was too raw, and this Rose was still too hardened against him. Instead he reached for the only other universal truth he could make her understand.

“Because you know that this is the right thing to do,” he answered softly.

She winced, and he wondered if she _had_ been expecting him to manipulate her with grandiose declarations of destiny and paradoxes. She looked down for a few moments, blinking, and when she looked back up that firm resolve was back in her eyes.

“Right. Tell me how this works again?”

He smiled gratefully at her for a moment before speaking. “Bubble universe!” It was practically a shout, and Rose jumped slightly beside him. “Not nearly as much fun as it sounds, unfortunately, but there’s masses of them out there and they’re mostly harmless. I should’ve _known_ something was wrong when the walls were thin enough here for them to just slip through.” He didn’t like the implication behind his words that this Rose showing up was ‘wrong’, but he kept speaking as they gathered what they needed and left the TARDIS. “You see,” he continued, locking the doors, “your universe is ahead of ours, and somehow you must’ve jumped sideways instead of backwards which explains how you ended up in 2011 and not 2008 where you should be, breaking down the walls between parallels as you went – how many times have I _warned_ you lot about doing that?”

Continuing in an affectionately patronizing tone, the Doctor walked them around the corner to the alley where his readings had indicated Rose and the other Doctor had vanished.

“This is it,” he said grimly. He felt Rose squeeze his hand and looked down, surprised: he hadn’t even realised she’d taken it.

A cat shot past them and down the alleyway, and Rose furrowed her brow in confusion. “Why didn’t the cat vanish, too?”

“Void stuff,” he said. The words felt wrong in his mouth, _contaminated_ somehow, carrying with them memories of a white room in Canary Wharf. He knew Rose felt it, too, thought he saw her shudder slightly beside him. “The walls are thin enough, it’s like that extra little push you need to get through. Well, I say push, I mean pull.” He clicked his teeth thoughtfully. “Presumably, that cat has never been through the Void.”

“But if the other Doctor was created in this universe, then how could he have...”

“He travelled through the Void once. Briefly.” The Doctor couldn’t help but smile wistfully, remembering how Rose and his duplicate had stood their ground and refused to leave with Jackie when he’d finally returned them to Pete’s Norway. Fumbling in his pockets, he retrieved the cartoonish big yellow button and handed it to her. Rose regarded it silently for a moment.

“Can’t believe I’m doing this on _purpose_ ,” she said finally, her voice strange and choked. “I worked so hard, for so long...”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He pulled her into a hug, resting his chin against the blonde crown of her hair. She had sacrificed so much just to find him, only to be told by the Doctor she found that she was too late: another Rose had already found him, and now she had to help get her other self back for him, risking her own life in the process; he couldn’t imagine what she must be going through, but he knew what he needed to say. “And I love you, Rose, of course I do. I always did.” She pulled back in surprise and he stole the moment to bend forward and kiss her deeply, his lips devouring, his tongue tasting, exploring – as always, she tasted like some delicious, forbidden fruit. When the kiss broke, her eyes remained closed.

“Wow,” she said, blinking them open. “I think I like this goodbye a lot better than the last one.”

He grinned. “Me too.” Then, more serious: “And it’s not ‘goodbye’, Rose, it’s ‘see you soon.’ You’ll be fine, I promise.” He wished desperately that he were as sure as he hoped he sounded. What was he _thinking_? He’d lost her so many times, was he really sending her away voluntarily now? What if he lost all _three_ of them forever, would he then spend eternity alone, wearing out his remaining regenerations from old age one at a time in his TARDIS parked just down the road?

Rose threw her shoulders back and stepped forward, turned. “See you soon.” Then she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it **was** herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…_

The Doctor had no sooner turned to make his way back to the TARDIS when he heard the unmistakable _whoosh_ of materialization behind him. He whirled back around and there they were: his Roses and his double, right there before him where Rose had vanished only seconds before. The joy he felt at their return quickly dissipated as he saw that the other Doctor was being carried by the two Roses – the younger Rose holding his ankles and the older Rose hanging on to his arms. The two of them seemed barely able to keep him off the ground, and his...black? suit was in danger of being dragged against the filthy pavement.

He rushed over to them, his sonic screwdriver out in seconds, ready to scan the other Doctor for injuries. “What is it, what's happened to him?” he asked, panicked. The women gently lowered him to the concrete ground.

“Dimension-hopping” and “Crossing parallels” they both said at the same time, then gave each other a wary-but-amused look before the younger Rose continued.

“It causes, um, sort of like motion sickness,” she said, standing back. “It can be pretty bad if you're not used to it. I think he just passed out.” The Doctor knelt next to his duplicate, relieved but no less concerned. “He looks just _like_ you. God, that's weird.”

“He is me,” the Doctor said, not looking up. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What's on his _face_?”

“Eyeliner,” the older Rose answered without hesitation.

“What?” the Doctor squeaked. “ _Eyeliner_ , what's he wearing _eyeliner_ for? What were you doing?”

“Blending in,” she snapped back at him.

“Where were you, Universe of the Goths?”

“You two want to help me carry him back to the TARDIS, or would you rather sit here and argue in the street?” the younger Rose asked, obviously annoyed. “Because two sets of identical twins shouting at each other in the middle of London isn't strange or anything.”

She had a very good point, the Doctor had to concede. Gathering up his duplicate's considerably long legs, the two Roses each took an arm and they carried him as gently as possible to the TARDIS. At one point, the Doctor now in black murmured and opened his eyes, looked up at the two Roses above him, and shook his head before closing them again.

Inside, they laid him on the grated floor and the Doctor rushed to the console to send them into the Vortex, anxious to get away from that thin, dangerous patch of reality. “Rose...” he heard the other Doctor murmur in his sleep. “Rose, where's your corset? The guards are coming.” Raising one eyebrow, the Doctor in brown looked over at the older Rose, who in turn glanced down at her own scarlet and very _revealing_ dress.

“You wouldn't believe it if I told you,” she said. He couldn’t help but grin at her, at the situation and with relief at having them all back with him.

“He looks just like you,” the other Rose was still repeating. “I mean, he's _you_. Doesn't that freak you out?” She was, the Doctor noted, very determinedly not commenting on her _own_ double standing a few feet away, almost ignoring looking at her altogether; the Doctor wondered if her fixation on the two Doctors might be her way of coming to terms with the other Rose. Right then, the other Doctor's eyes flew open.

“Rose,” he gasped to the younger Rose. “Rose are we...”

“Safe,” the older Rose said, moving to his side. Even in this tense moment, the Doctor couldn’t help appreciating the way her legs moved in that ridiculously short excuse for a dress. “Yeah. 'Course we are.” 

The metacrisis Doctor’s eyes moved between the two women. “Those clothes,” he said, nodding down at the younger Rose's outfit. “I remember them.” There must have been so little time to explain when she retrieved them, the Time Lord realised, that the Rose who had just found him hadn’t had time to rehash her most recent jump into their universe; had probably just shown up, grabbed them and hit her button. The Doctor’s hearts broke just a little for his other self, and what he knew he was feeling at the recognition of the younger Rose and when she must be in relation to their timeline.

“Yeah,” she said, looking almost embarrassed. “I guess I've found you too early. Or...too late,” she added, her brow furrowed.

The Doctor watched his half-human self lay back down on the floor, rubbing one eye with his fingers and smearing his eyeliner, his head cradled in one arm. “Well,” he said grimly, “isn't that just wizard?”

 

***

 

After leaving the two Doctors in the medbay (where, among other things, they were presumably sharing a proper hello), Rose found her younger self in her room, _their_ room. The other woman stood in the middle of the area, looking around slowly. “Feels weird, bein' back here,” she said as Rose entered, turning to face her. “You've changed it.”

“Yeah, well...I've changed, I guess.” She sat on the bed, feeling like a stranger in her own skin; the Doctor in brown had given she and the other Doctor only a brief explanation of the other Rose’s presence here, and she was still wrapping her head around it. The other Rose sat next to her.

“How long have you been back with him? Them, I mean,” she corrected herself, shaking her head. “Two Doctors; still can't believe that. How is he? The other one?”

“He's fine,” Rose answered. “The Doctor, the first one I mean, says he'll just bit a bit woozy for awhile, but his vitals are good, heartbeat's strong, all that.”

“Both working?” the younger woman asked with a shy smile.

“Oh, um...just one, actually. He's part human, 'cause of the whole metacrisis. Did the Doctor tell you...?”

“Sort of.” They were silent again for several long moments, and Rose realised she had no idea what to say to herself. Was this how the Doctors had felt at first?

“I'm not sure,” she blurted out suddenly. To the other woman's questioning look, she clarified: “How long it's been, I mean. You know how time is on the TARDIS, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Another uncomfortable silence.

“How are _you_?” Rose asked her younger self. “I mean, after the whole crossing-dimensions thing: I remember it was awful.” She rubbed at her own temples, trying to fight off the impending headache from their last jump.

The other Rose shrugged. “Physically, just tired. Mentally, I have no idea,” she answered. “I thought...when I saw the Doctor, I thought 'That's it, I've done it, I found him.' But it's all wrong, 'cause he's got you.” She heaved a shuddery sigh. “I kind of hate you right now.”

Rose barked a laugh, unable to stop herself at the absurdity and accuracy of that statement. When the other Rose looked confused, she tried to explain herself. “Sorry, it's just...if you could've seen the Doctors when the three of us were first travelling together, they were at each others' _throats_. S'odd, being on the other end and feeling what that's like.”

The other Rose looked nervous. “You should know that when I first came back, me'n the Doctor...” Her voice trailed off.

“Oh.” Rose left it at that. She had no response really: she wasn't surprised and she felt she had no _right_ to be angry, but she was. Once again, the irony and the polarity of her current situation against that of the Doctors was not lost on her. What had it been like for her part-human Doctor, in those first days when she and the Doctor were sleeping together again? She had never been able to truly empathize with how painful that must have been for him, but she could now.

“So how does it work,” the younger Rose asked, “with the two Doctors? Are you, y'know, shagging both of them?”

She smiled. “It's a bit more complicated than that.”

“How? I mean, it's not like I'm going to remember any of this anyway, right? D’you have a schedule or what?”

Rose took a deep breath, unsure how to explain the intricacies of her love life to an outsider, even if that outsider was herself. “It's all three of us,” she said. “Me, and the Doctors. It's...what I guess you would call a threesome. I've never thought of it like that, though, because they are the same person, except they're really not and...” She raised her hands from her lap, then let them drop again. “I dunno. It's hard to explain. But they love me, and they love each other, and it's _brilliant_.”

The other woman was quiet for a moment as she took this in. “Are you saying that the Doctor is shagging _himself_?”

Rose laughed. “Sort of, yeah.” Her other self returned her laughter.

“That's very him.” They giggled for a moment, savouring the hilarity of their shared understanding of the Doctor's vanity. “Okay,” the other Rose said as her laughter died down, “now I _really_ hate you.”

The older Rose laughed heartily, but it felt false, and the other woman appeared to sense it, giving her a questioning look. “It's great,” she started to say. “Really. I mean, they’re the same but they’re also really different, andI love them both so much and, well, the sex is great too, I won't lie. It's just sometimes I feel...I dunno, left out?” She glanced around quickly, unnecessarily checking that they were alone; she'd never discussed these feelings with either of the Doctors before, and it felt like an act of betrayal voicing them out loud. “They understand each other better than I ever could. They remember their planet and 900 years of travelling and only a few of those years were with me, and sometimes it's like these _looks_ just pass between them and I just feel like an outsider.” She sighed, feeling almost like a weight had been lifted from her chest. “And of course, they're both men and, y'know, they know what each other likes and...” 

Rose trailed off as the implications of what she'd been saying sunk in. It occurred to her that now, things _were_ even between her and the Doctors, and she felt closer to them than she perhaps ever had, feeling as if she _understood_ them and the strange predicament they found themselves in every day. Another woman...not just any other woman, but herself. She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it _was_ herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…

The Doctor was almost a welcome distraction, appearing at her/their door. “Rose,” he said, then glancing between them, added a “...ses,” to make it plural. He sounded apologetic and vaguely confused, and she had to admit it was amusing seeing the tables turned on him like this.

The younger Rose stood, tugging at the front of her jacket. Steeling herself. “It's time to go?” she asked, sadly.

“No,” the Doctor said, drawing the word out. “No need to run off right away! Besides, your hopper needs at least another 8 hours to charge completely.”

She shook her head. “It only needs...”

“Ah,” he interrupted, looking embarrassed. “That's my fault. Increased power means bigger battery equals longer charge time. You're stuck for a bit. Which reminds me, actually, you'll want to watch your next few jumps – much more sensitive now: parallels, alternates, bubble universes, they're all fair game. You might end up somewhere that never even really existed!” He looked overjoyed at how interesting that sounded, and the older Rose saw the frightened look on her younger self's face and cleared her throat angrily, shaking her head, indicating the Doctor should shut up.

“The other Doctor…?” The younger Rose let her statement trail off into a question.

“Good. Fine. He’s good.” The abrupt words and the way his eyes drifted around the room and didn’t quite meet theirs confirmed, for Rose, that a proper ‘hello’ had indeed been exchanged in her absence, mostly likely in the form of this Doctor on his knees in front of the other. She found it endearing that the Doctor was apparently slightly embarrassed about the nature of his relationship with his other self, in the presence of this Rose. “He’s gone to wash the _make-up_ off of his face.”

The other Rose turned to her older self. “Do you mind if _I_ go find him? Not to...I just want…” She flapped her hands in frustration, but Rose understood what she was trying to say: this younger Rose needed to reassure herself that the other Doctor _was_ the Doctor, as much as she had needed to reassure herself with a visit to her old room. She had no intention of getting him alone and seducing him, she just wanted to speak with him.

“Sure, yeah,” Rose said, giving what she hoped came off as an understanding smile.

When the younger woman had gone, the Doctor pulled her to him in a crushing hug. “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered against her ear, kissing her neck. When he pulled back, she saw that his eyes were moist. “I thought I’d lost you both.”

“Couldn’t’ve been _too_ upset, though,” she muttered, stepping back out of his embrace.

The Doctor’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What...what’s that mean?”

Rose sighed, not wanting to have this conversation right now but unable to set aside the revelation from a few minutes ago. “She told me. Other Rose, she told me about when she first got here.” Weary from this day of jumping across universes and from, literally, talking to herself, she crossed her arms and looked down at her feet – they were blurry with unshed tears that would fall if she blinked.

“Rose,” the Doctor said softly, very carefully not touching her. “She’s _you_. You understand that.” He spoke the last as if there were no question, which she understood that there shouldn’t be. But, she wondered, if it were so clear to her, why should she feel so...so _jealous_? “It happened because I missed you, because I love you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know that in my head, just...not in my heart, okay?” Struggling to articulate the conflict she felt about her other self, she swept her hair out of her eyes – the other Rose had it pinned back; when had she stopped doing that, she tried to remember? “I wish she’d never come here,” she said finally, honestly, “but…”

“But you don’t want her to leave,” the Doctor finished, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Yeah,” she said.

He enveloped her in another hug, not saying out loud but still conveying that he understood how she felt, probably better than even she did.

 

***

 

The part-human Doctor regarded his face in the mirror above the sink, a piece of tissue slathered with some of Rose’s cold cream in one hand, poised to wipe the now very-smudged eyeliner from around his eyes. It wasn’t such a bad look, he thought. Perhaps the black eyeliner was something he could revisit – it went well with his tattoo. The leather trousers, however, were a bit much. He glanced down at his skinny legs, encased in the tight, shiny material.

“They sort of suit you,” a voice spoke from behind him. The Doctor looked back up into the eyes of a younger Rose, reflected in the mirror from where she stood in the doorway to the bathroom.

“Really?” he asked, looking down at himself again, stretching out one leg and cocking his hip to the side, missing Rose’s smirk entirely.

“Reminds me of that winter ball on that moon, the Shakespeare one?”

“Oberon!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly at her in the mirror. “They were a bit...um, oddly formal, weren’t they?”

“What, you mean the regulation skin-tight spacesuits?” Rose asked, laughing. “I didn’t know how I’d ever get mine off again!”

“Wellll,” the Doctor purred, grinning at her in the mirror with his tongue against the inside of his teeth, “you had a bit of help if I recall.” The younger Rose cleared her throat and looked down, and the Doctor chastised himself inwardly; it had to still have been strange for her, hearing such intimate details from the mouth of someone who looked like the Doctor, but whom she wasn’t perhaps convinced _was_ the Doctor just yet.

“So you have all of his memories,” she said, changing the subject. The Doctor returned to removing the black from around his eyes.

“And then some,” he said. “You haven’t met Donna Noble yet, but what she knew about celebrity gossip…” He paused, stricken both by how he’d blurted out a name from Rose’s future (he had always presumed that her jump into Donna’s brief, alternate universe was her last before finding him), and by how he had referred to Donna in the past tense. _Knows_ , he reminded himself silently. _What she knows_.

“Who’s Donna Noble?” Rose asked, having caught his little slip-up.

“What about you?” he said quickly. “You’ve never said much about your adventures before you found me.” She shrugged, and he knew not to press it any further.

Rose watched him removing make-up in the mirror for several minutes in silence, and the Doctor knew he shouldn’t break it. This Rose had sought him out for some reason, and he should let her announce it when she was ready. He was content to enjoy her reflection in the mirror, looking just as he remembered her running toward him on that ruined London street so long ago. Yet, he couldn’t leave it at that. He understood Rose, _his_ Rose, the one he saw every day, well enough now that he didn’t need to ask the question anymore. But a reaction to this Rose… some long disused, almost instinctual impulse forced the words from his mouth before he was hardly aware he was speaking them: “What are you thinking?”

“He told me he loved me,” she said, tentatively stepping closer behind him. “The Doctor.” He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “He’s never said that before.”

“It’s true,” the part-human Doctor said.

“You’ve… _done_ something to him. You and the other me. He’s different now.” The Doctor had a flash of memory: he, Rose and his other self, their minds connected as they made love – so soon after the Time Lord Doctor had begun to open up and express his hearts to both of them, and the thought from Rose’s mind that maybe, just maybe, _she_ wasn’t comfortable with that. Of course, it would be strange for this Rose.

He turned to her, laying his tissue aside. “It won’t happen overnight,” he said. “It takes time. He’ll try to push you, to push _us_ away.” So strange, he thought, to comfort her by reassuring her that her lover would, in fact, still be an ass when she found him again. “But don’t let him. You _won’t_ let him, because…” He shrugged, grinned at her. “Because you’re Rose.”

She nodded, reached out and laid a hand on his chest over his one heart. He closed his eyes as she stood, quietly, feeling it beat. After a moment, she reached up, brushed her lips against his, and left the room. Whatever question she had been trying to ask, that seemed to be answer enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”_
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> _Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”_

Alcohol seemed like the only logical next step in the progression of their extremely stressful day. If the younger Rose would be hopping into yet another dimension the next day, not only did it seem fitting to send her off and thank her for her help with a celebratory meal and toast, but Rose could admit there was more than a bit of sorrow-drowning going on as well. For the Rose so recently reunited with the Doctor(s), because it meant losing him again and facing an uncertain and probably dangerous future. For the three of them left behind, it meant acknowledging sending her away, even though they knew that the light of their reunion awaited the end of her current bleak path.

“I don’t remember _any_ of this,” Rose said out loud. Her younger self looked up from her picked-at plate of food and her third glass of wine. “I think back before I found you,” she said to the Doctors, “and all I can remember is darkness.” She shuddered slightly, the other Rose mirroring her and doing the same. “Will I remember? After she’s...I’m gone, and all this is over, will I remember all this then? Remember as her, I mean?”

The Doctor in brown’s eyes were kind and sad. “No. Even if the dimension transferal fugue weren’t permanent, which it is, I’d have to…” He stopped, and the older Rose knew he was remembering Donna.

“What, take my memories away?” The younger Rose’s cheeks were flushed, whether from anger or wine Rose couldn’t tell.

“Yes,” the Doctor answered finally. “I shouldn’t have to, but I would. I’m sorry.”

“You have to forget,” the Doctor now back in blue continued for him. “You have to run to me on that street, you have to watch me nearly die and regenerate and you can’t know what’s going to happen or stop the Dalek from shooting me. You have to let him take _us_ –” he gestured to himself and both Roses, “– back to Norway. It all has to happen in _precisely_ the right order, or…” He shrugged and took a rather large gulp of wine. “Or it won’t,” he finished, licking his lips.

There was silence around the table for some time as they all took in his words. “So she goes on,” Rose said, nodding to her other self. “Lonely, sick, starving, and we just continue on like nothing ever happened?”

“Rose–” her half-human Doctor started to say, but he was interrupted by the Time Lord seated next to him.

“Yes,” he said shortly. His face was blank. Resigned. “That’s what we do because we have to.” The subject was quickly changed. They shared stories and memories; the Doctors seemed to bring up every journey the four of them had ever taken together, back when they used to be two people: Woman Wept, the Gamestation, New Earth, Rome… whether because they were anxious to remind the Roses of happier times, or to steer the conversation firmly away from the direction it had been taking, the older Rose wasn’t sure.

For her, the rest of the meal lost its previous carefree atmosphere. She realised she was well past half-drunk, but she couldn’t help feeling dismissed by both of the Doctors’ comments. _She_ knew more than anyone how important it was to preserve the timeline; this was _her future_ they were talking about after all. Yet, through the haze of alcohol and the sad fog of empathy for her younger self, she couldn’t help thinking that, if the roles were somehow reversed at this time and it was her part-human Doctor who needed to be sent away to preserve the course of events, the Time Lord would somehow have found a way. The other man was that important to him. Here _she_ was – the same Rose _she_ used to be right before they were reunited – and aside from a quick fuck before he’d sent her off to find his two customary companions, he’d hardly interacted with her at all. _With **me**_ , Rose’s mind screamed silently. _This all happened to **me** , he treated **me** this way, I just don’t remember it._

She was starting to get a headache.

Lost in her thoughts, she only slightly noticed when the Doctors excused themselves to retire to the bedroom the three of them shared more often than not these days. The two women sat silently, sipping their drinks. Rose could not help staring at her younger self, wondering, trying to _remember_ what could possibly be going on in her head. Was she sad? Angry? Anxious to go? Would it be okay to ask how their mum was doing? It was past-Jackie, so Rose knew _exactly_ how she was doing in the younger Rose’s present: worried, and frustrated with her daughter for refusing to just ‘let that man go and move on.’ Still, it would be nice to hear it, though the Doctors almost certainly wouldn’t approve.

All of these thoughts raced through Rose’s mind in minutes, as she continued to stare at her double.

“ _What_?” the other Rose said finally, sounding annoyed, looking up at her.

“Doesn’t it, y’know, bother you? That he just said he’d erase your memory before sending you off if he had to?” The other Rose seemed so _complacent_ ; Rose was having a hard time reconciling it with the hurt she felt on her younger self’s behalf at the Doctor’s words.

The other woman shrugged. “It doesn’t feel _great_ , but the Doctor knows what’s best.”

“But what do _you_ want?” Rose asked. She was irritated with herself for not standing up for _both_ of them, for how single-minded she’d been at that time and how she’d neglected her own health and well being.

“To get back to the Doctor,” other Rose answered, calmly and immediately. “To save the world. I know you remember that much.”

She did. She remembered the stars vanishing, the riots in the streets...the fear, the longing and the belief that everything would be okay if she could just find him. After having been back with him for so long, it was difficult to place herself back in that frame of mind again.

“So...does he sleep now? The first Doctor, or whatever you call him?”

“They didn’t leave to sleep,” Rose answered, finishing the dregs of her glass. The younger woman did the same, looking flustered. “They want us to follow them,” Rose added. “They didn’t say as much, but that’s what they’re hoping...expecting...I don’t know. We could, if you want…?” Her sentence became an inquiry, one which her double did not immediately answer.

“So,” the younger woman said after an uncomfortable silence in which Rose knew she was imagining the Doctors together in exactly the way they almost certainly were. “How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”

Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”

The tension between them became almost palpable, and then she was lunging across the table, curling her fingers into the front of the younger Rose's leather jacket. Pulling her roughly forward, Rose smashed her mouth against that of her other self. The younger woman kissed her back hungrily, clamouring around the table, hands going to her shoulders, running up and down her arms, around her neck, in her hair, _everywhere_. She seemed to want this, to need this, as badly as Rose herself did.

Somehow they found their way back to her room, continuing to kiss as they both struggled to remove each other's jackets. Even through the haze of drink and growing arousal, she couldn't help but note every detail about how different it was kissing a woman rather than a man. The younger Rose's lips were soft, they seemed to melt under hers; her saliva was sweet and her tongue was gentle and inquisitive. It only served to amplify her desire, and the older Rose clutched at the other woman's ass, forcing their hips together instinctively and finding no pressure there, no growing erection like she was used to. Friction, she needed _friction_.

Grabbing one of the younger Rose's hands, she thrust it between her legs, grinding against it. The other girl responded, rubbing her fingers furiously against the seam of her trousers, but it still wasn't enough.

“Oh God,” the younger Rose panted, as if voicing her frustrations. “Fuck me. Can you?”

“I can try,” the older Rose growled, fumbling at the buttons of her younger self's black trousers and forcing them roughly down. “Lay down.”

The younger woman shimmied the rest of the way out of her trousers and underwear and laid back on their bed, looking awkward and unsure. Rose, on the other hand, felt positively predatory as she crawled over the supine form of her other self.

“I know _you_ haven’t,” she started, punctuating her words with exploratory kisses to her younger self's smooth belly, “But I’ve still never done...” kiss, “anything like this...” top of the right thigh, “with...” gently spreading her legs, “a girl.” Rose stared for a moment, unable to resist the spectacle of herself from what was usually the Doctor's point of view: the soft, slightly unkempt strip of her pubic hair (sparking Rose’s memories of her dimensional jumps leaving little time for personal grooming), the open lips like petals and the glistening pink beneath. She knew exactly what to do, and the older Rose bent forward without another thought and tasted herself, licking the entire length of her before settling at her clit. Understanding that this was where to focus, lavishing the attention on the other woman which she herself usually enjoyed, she lapped eagerly, tasting the increasing moisture as the younger Rose moaned and writhed under her attention. It was almost too easy: she hardly felt like she needed to breathe at all as she licked, slipping first one and then two fingers inside the other woman's tight heat and fucking her as she'd promised. Fingering her slowly, she gently sucked her clitoris at the same pace until the younger woman dug her fingernails into her scalp and screamed as she came in her mouth.

The other Rose lay still, her chest rising and falling with her gradually slowing breath. “That was…” she said after several minutes. The sentence was unfinished, but Rose knew exactly what she was trying to say: amazing, and not half-weird. It had been for her as well.

She nodded, wiping her mouth, unsure how to proceed. To her relief, the other woman spoke first.

“Do you still have…” Once again, she didn’t need to finish her sentence; Rose knew exactly to what she was referring. It had been on her own mind since they had stumbled into this room: the collection of sex toys in her bedside table that she and the Doctors frequently enjoyed together. The other Rose only knew of the one, of course, which had been hers back when she was on the TARDIS – her trusty pink vibrator, that very same one which she would go on to use on the part-human Doctor near the beginning of their sexual relationship. The younger Rose had no way of knowing that, in their time and travels since it had become the three of them, they had built up quite an impressive collection.

Her hands nearly trembling with excitement, Rose opened the nightstand and selected a likely candidate, one which they’d not had the opportunity to try out yet. Purchased on another planet whose inhabitants shared a very similar physiology to that of humans, the alien material was nearly iridescent while the smooth shape was undeniably phallic.

She handed it to the other Rose, who considered it for several seconds, turning it over. “It’s beautiful,” she said finally with a small, cheeky smile, biting her lip. _Do I always look so sexy when I do that_ , Rose wondered, and resolved to do it consciously more often.

They returned to kissing slowly as she wriggled out of the last of her clothing, enjoying the softness of their naked bodies sliding together as she allowed the younger Rose to maneuver her onto her back and move over her. Their eyes locked, the other Rose’s expression was somewhere between amusement and arousal as she eased their toy between Rose’s spread legs and slid the cool length of it through her slit. She gasped at the pressure against her clit, all too fleeting, and could feel how wet she was.

“Ready?” the other Rose asked. Rose nodded. She heard a hum as the toy was turned on, and then felt the other woman angle it and slide it inside of her. As it always was, the feeling was overwhelming: vibration, inside and against all the right places, coming and going as the younger woman fucked her slow but hard just like she liked it. She wasn’t going to last long, she never did like this, and Rose gave herself over to it, raising her hips off the bed to meet the other Rose’s thrusts. The other woman pressed soft kisses across her chest, taking her nipple into her mouth and sucking even as she quickened her pace down below. Moaning encouragement, the younger Rose changed the angle, and Rose found herself coming suddenly, too hard even to make a noise. It seemed to go on and on as the other Rose continued to move the vibrator inside of her, slowing until her shaking finally ceased.

“I wish you could stay,” Rose said dreamily when she could speak again, running her fingers over the curve of the other woman’s hip.

“I don’t,” the other Rose said curtly. Rose’s hand froze, and the younger woman sat back.

“It’s uneven this way, isn’t it? Feels weird sayin’ that, that three would be more balanced than four, but it is. Me being here throws it off somehow, because the Doctors love you and you love them, and I don’t fit in with that. You don’t _love_ me, you miss _being_ me, or maybe you miss something about this time right before you found him.” She paused, swept a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m not like the other Doctor – he was created right next to you guys, in your timeline. He’s part of that. Thing is, _my_ Doctor is still out there somewhere, waiting for me. He needs me. I think you’re the only one who doesn’t get that.”

Rose was taken aback. It was true, she _hadn’t_ thought of that, that it wasn’t just her timeline she was thinking of mucking about with, but the Doctor’s. And it was true that seeing herself as she used to be made her feel many things: wistful, nostalgic for a simpler time and envious of what was still to come for her...but love wasn’t one of them.

“Seeing you three, what you’ve become to each other, it’s given me something to hope for for the first time in a long time. I mean, yeah I’ve hoped for the Doctor, but I never _dreamed_ this,” the other Rose continued. “And...I can’t wait,” she finished with a little laugh.

“It looks perfect,” Rose found herself saying in what she imagined to be a very old, wise voice, “but it’s a lot of work.”

Younger Rose rolled her eyes. “ _Every_ relationship is work. I think you take all this for granted. I’ll be sure to work on that, when I’m you.”

Some time later, after they had drifted into sleep, the Doctor, used to being the only creature on his TARDIS that didn’t rest, wandered past Rose’s room on the way to his workshop and paused to take in the two women sleeping in a beautiful tangle of naked limbs and blonde hair. He stood for several minutes, considering the strange parallels of the situation Rose now found herself in, and that which he lived every day, before continuing silently on his way.

***

“I’ve still got that somewhere,” the older Rose said, nodding toward the notebook her double held. Her face took on a faraway expression. “I seriously can’t remember where. S’a trip down memory lane I never wanted to make, you know?”

Rose scribbled her notes, not looking up. “I keep wanting to leave myself some kind of a note to, I dunno, lift my spirits or something. But I won’t,” she said quickly at the Doctors’ simultaneous eyebrow raises.

“ _‘No Doctor,’_ that’s all it can say,” the Doctor in brown insisted. “You can’t remember any of this.”

“I don’t,” the Rose standing next to him said, her voice quiet.

“Good,” he said loftily, giving her an almost imperceptible nod.

Young Rose tucked the note pad in her jacket and turned first to the brown-suited Doctor – _her_ Doctor, for whom she’d fought to get back to since that day on Bad Wolf Bay...since the moment the lever had slipped, actually. “It’s not goodbye,” she said, her voice choked.

“It’s see you soon,” he answered, smiling sadly before pulling her into a hug. She saw the older Rose wince only slightly when she met the Doctor’s lips with hers and kissed him properly, the way she had the previous day, and the way she’d always wished she’d been able to when they said goodbye in Norway.

Then she turned to the Doctor in blue – the mysterious stranger who wore the love of her life’s face. “I don’t know what to say,” she started cautiously, very aware of the last time she’d spoken those words to this man, or a man just like him, in farewell. “You scare me a little,” she said, truthfully.

“Thanks,” he said, nonplussed.

“But I know,” she continued over him, “that somehow, you’re the Doctor. Just...be patient with me, yeah?” Not saying, hoping he understood, that she was speaking both to him, and to the him waiting to be born in whatever universe she was heading towards; the man she would have to learn to love all over again. Placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, she tried not to see the hurt in his eyes that she didn’t kiss him as she had the Time Lord, but it was just too soon for her. Then before she’d even completed that thought, she found herself pulling him forward by his suit lapels and kissing him properly, catching an odd, knowing look pass between Rose and the Doctor in brown as she did so. Kissing him was just like kissing the Doctor, and nothing like kissing the Doctor at the same time – his lips were hot, and he kissed her back ferociously, bending her backwards. She found herself once more desperately eager to have this new man in her life, to have them both the way the other Rose did and didn’t seem, to her, to appreciate nearly enough, because at that moment the possibilities seemed endless.

When the kiss finally ended, she stepped to herself last on slightly wobbly knees. “Take care of these boys.” The older Rose nodded.

“You too.”

Quickly, fluidly, the young Rose wound her arms around the other woman’s neck and kissed her a long goodbye, dimly aware of the Doctors watching intently feet away. When she felt the other woman’s tongue touch her lips, she opened her mouth to receive it. She could feel a lot of things about this moment, Rose realized – sadness at leaving her Doctor(s) again, envy for this other Rose, fear at whatever waited for her on the other side of the dimensional wall. But strangely, where she could have felt all of these things, she found herself flooded only with hope.

She pressed the yellow button the moment they parted, and the three familiar figures before her vanished.

***

Until she checked her notes, it was just another standard jump with the dimension cannon, if there was such a thing.

Rose realized immediately from her surroundings – the large, sterile office and the glass walls – that she was home this time, which meant Mickey must have turned the homing beacon on: something they had agreed would not be done except under the most urgent of circumstances. “Why’d you bring me back?” she asked, turning to where she instinctively knew he’d be standing in front of the wall of monitors. “What is it, is it Mum?”

“Sorry, babe, but I thought you’d wanna see this,” he said, not tearing his eyes away from the screens. Rose stared intently at the many lines and numbers as she approached behind him, her brow furrowed as she attempted to make any sense of them. “Whatever happened on your last jump’s making the time lines go bonkers.” Mickey finally turned to look at her as she moved to stand beside him. “What _did_ happen, d’you…?”

“Don’t remember,” Rose answered. “If I did find him there’d be…”

She’d removed her notebook from her pocket as she spoke, and a slight variation in her notes this time caught her eye and made her pause: _Attempt seven – no Doctors_. The plural confused her, but what Mickey said next drove it out of her mind.

“They’re converging.” He nodded toward the screen. “The timelines. At several points. It’s gotta be him, don’t it?” He glanced over at her. “It’s good to see you, by the way.”

“Yeah, you as well,” she said, not looking at him, staring at the screen. “Might as well get started,” she said, tapping the screen. “Here...what is that, 2009?”

“Yeah, we sent scouts,” Mickey answered, sounding pleased that he’d obviously arrived at the same conclusion. “It’s just London, nothing that unusual that we saw – except some kind of new weight loss drug making the rounds, big results but no research to back it up, could be worth looking into.”

“Aliens targeting overweight people? Nothing changes,” Rose said, amused, moving back into position and retrieving her yellow button. “Right, I”ll check in after the next few jumps. And tell Mum: _no following me_ , got it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Mickey said, giving a broad smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good luck,” she heard him say as she hit the button, and then all was darkness.


End file.
